Remove the Potential Ability from FM2015!

[aderow]

It seems you missed the word "RANDOM" in my post. I don't suggest linear same progression for everyone. I suggest that everyone should have a chance - and then randomly 1% of them will make it.

Development/progression is not random. It's certainly not linear, but no means is it random. There's a reason things happen. People don't randomly improve in something. People don't randomly fall off. There's reason to why it happens. And just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.

You don't get it mate. Why can't you accept that some players, a lot of players actually, don't have the potential to be great or even good? Why is it hard for you to accept that, in real life, some people are screwed to begin with by genetics/nature?

Why should the game give everyone a chance when in reality nature doesn't?

But in real life, no one, including best-ever scouts or managers, has a crystal ball to predict PA.

And why was he thought so? Because at that time Quaresma had higher CA than Ronaldo. Bingo - remove PA and leave CA, and it's enough to predict.

Yeah, this is a problem. But even bigger problem is that in FM2014 we can see very early that 16-year old or 17-year old has only so-so PA and we can fire him to focus on high-PA guys instead. If it was so in real life, we wouldn't see Tyler Blackett in MU shirt.

No one is predicting PA in the game either. PPA is not exact. Yes the scouts are accurate but they are giving you a determination based a number of factors. They aren't just spitting out recommendations that are qualitative versions of the exact number.

And what part of the fact that do you not get that Ronaldo always had it in him to become what he is today? Why don't you get that, no matter what people thought he was before, he has far exceeded all expectations because the potential was always there?

And as for Tyler Blackett, I'll keep this in FM terms. The United scouts and coaches obvious think he has a higher PPA than the SI researchers do. Why? Well they look at him day in day out. They get to better evaluate him and make a better determination of what he could be (that's PPA not PA). The SI researchers have less time and way more players to evaluate. If they didn't he had anything in him, he'd be gone. Or at least not playing with the first team.

The point of original post is two-fold. We need more volatile development curves AND we need to not know in advance how good the player can become.

To remove this stupid limitation, I suggested to remove PA and then randomly any youngster can become world class, but very few will. And if PA is gone, the managers would still try to play guys like Blackett hoping to get something out of them, because in real life there is no known ceiling.

Just because you don't know what the ceiling is doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

You miss the problem. The problem is that even with the improved development curve, if PA system stays, the teams will fire all youngsters with lower than 3.5 PA because they are waste of time and money. Even if not all of 4.5-5 PA players will become stars, they at least have a chance; 3.5 PA are doomed, and this is obviously fake.

You are still misunderstanding the fundamental nature of PA and how it's incorporated in the game.

3.5 star players are doomed? I had a 2 star youngster become an England international. An England starter. I found a player in league 2 by MYSELF (my scouts never reported him to me because they didn't think he was worth it) who I eventually called up to my world cup squad and scored 3 goals in the world cup.

If you think that 3.5 and less star players are doomed from the get go then there's a fundamentally wrong way you are looking at youth development mate.

if we just ignore what our staff says our youth team would have hundreds of players.

I don't know what your youth intakes are like but I'm not certainly being offered hundreds of players

1. For scouting, transfer decisions and transfer price: use combination of CA, age, mental characteristics.

2. For development: use random, based on mental characteristics, facilities, first-team experience. So determined players in good team with 1st team exp will have better chance to turn stars, but even players in lower teams will have non-zero chance.

High prices = team doesn't want to sell. That's how it works in this game right now. Get over it. Once again please drop this notion of 'random' development.

Did you read my 2nd post that you quoted? I agree with the CA / PA system.

The problem is that if CA and mental stats come under player development and not PA, there is nothing a scout can judge to give an estimate on PA. I don't know why clubs / scouts therefore give their estimate on a players PA unless they can see in to the future!

Scouts / clubs should only give their estimations on CA and how likely / quickly a player will develop because nobody can predict PA.

If I misunderstood something then I apologize.

Scouts take into account different factors to determine what they believe a player's upside to be. No one is predicting PA. But it's the very nature of their job to give their employers the best estimation of a player's potential that they can. Aka the player's PPA. Otherwise what would be the points of scouts. Their very job is all about potential.

Scouts in the game already give estimations based on CA and age and other factors. That's why reports change as players get older. It's all part of PPA.

So tell me what determines how quickly a player develops?

[gunner86]

See this.

1000 16-year old kids. All same CA (high for their age). All same mental. All in the top clubs of the same level as Barca/MU with top facilities and top coaches. No PA.

Random development will make it that 1 of them becomes Messi, 10 of them become world class (Ribery), 100 of them become top club regulars, 500 of them will be Premier League regulars, and 500 will go to lower leagues or retire early.

And then, 10 years later, the commenters would say that "sure only one of those kids had potential to become Messi, others didn't have a chance", but at the time of their 16 years it wasn't clear who this one is.

It's like "Half the money we are spending on advertising was wasted, the problem is we don't know which half it is". So here it is the same - half of the players we train will be not good, but we don't know which half.

To explain more.

If we are about to buy a 16-year old guy, we would prefer to choose a guy with higher CA and better professionalism, since he has higher chance to turn a star. But there is a random chance that this guy will go nowhere, but a guy who had lower CA and lower professionalism will become great. This would be fun!

But the point is there is always a ceiling. Every human being has there limitations. I could train in the best facilities for years and put in all hours in the world with the best possible attitude, there comes a point where I'm just not going to get any better. And that level is my potential ability.

Rather than removing it, because some of your original complaints I do agree with (by which I mean club valuations), is to maybe have it so that it doesn't affect valuations and scouts have a much less accurate way of recognising it.

That being said I've had scouts say someone has 4 and a half star potential only for him to sign and my best coaches say hes 3 star, and after sitting 6 months out with a knee injury he's been worthless. In fact, I've overpayed for players more times then they've fulfilled the potential.

[jikavak]

But the point is there is always a ceiling. Every human being has there limitations. I could train in the best facilities for years and put in all hours in the world with the best possible attitude, there comes a point where I'm just not going to get any better. And that level is my potential ability.

Rather than removing it, because some of your original complaints I do agree with (by which I mean club valuations), is to maybe have it so that it doesn't affect valuations and scouts have a much less accurate way of recognising it.

That being said I've had scouts say someone has 4 and a half star potential only for him to sign and my best coaches say hes 3 star, and after sitting 6 months out with a knee injury he's been worthless. In fact, I've overpayed for players more times then they've fulfilled the potential.

This guy gets it.

If there are two 18 yr old players with the same current ability and mentality:

-IRL you can't say who is going to be better

-In FM you can

[Dave C]

This guy gets it.

If there are two 18 yr old players with the same current ability and mentality:

-IRL you can't say who is going to be better

-In FM you can

IRL you can say who is going to be better. Scouts and coaches get paid to make exactly that call. They may get it wrong, but they do attempt to predict it.

[aderow]

IRL you can say who is going to be better. Scouts and coaches get paid to make exactly that call. They may get it wrong, but they do attempt to predict it.

Exactly. Otherwise we'd have no need for scouts.

[mchbitil]

IRL you can say who is going to be better. Scouts and coaches get paid to make exactly that call. They may get it wrong, but they do attempt to predict it.

In real life they can never get it right since in real life they don't have crystal ball, time machine, or ability to peek into a magic PA number that SI researcher has put in.

In FM, scouts with 20/20 JA/JP are always right.

[Ackter]

No, theyre not.

[mchbitil]

No, theyre not.

Show me an example when they're not

[Dave C]

In real life they can never get it right since in real life they don't have crystal ball, time machine, or ability to peek into a magic PA number that SI researcher has put in.

In FM, scouts with 20/20 JA/JP are always right.

That's wrong on two levels:

1. Real life scouts, even FM researchers, get it right many times

2. No scout in FM is perfect

I fully agree the scouting model needs to change, and I'd want PA to play only a minor part in that. But it's not an argument for removing PA. Similarly the arguments around variability in development are valid, but again no reason to remove PA.

I've been posting here over a decade now, and this discussion happens every year. And in all that time not one person has made a valid argument for removing PA. They regularly identify real problems, but then mistakenly assign it to PA. Potential Ability is realistic and the best way to achieve what FM needs to represent. Arguments to remove it will always fail.

[aderow]

In real life they can never get it right since in real life they don't have crystal ball, time machine, or ability to peek into a magic PA number that SI researcher has put in.

In FM, scouts with 20/20 JA/JP are always right.

Once again they don't see PA.

And like Ackter said, they get things wrong. Especially when you consider that scout reports are dependent on other factors.

Show me an example when they're not

You want proof. Well I have 2 young attacking mids. One is 19. The other, 18. My assistant (with 20 for both JPP and JPA) rates the 19 year old as a 4.5 star player and rates the 18 yr old as a 4 star player.

Turns out the 19 yr old's PA is over 190. While the 18 yr old's is in the mid 160s. That's a difference of almost 30. And yet their star rating is only half a star apart.

Looked at a couple players I've scouted from one of my 20 JPP 20 JPA scouts. First report I looked at 19 yr old player. 4.5 rated player. Actual PA is 165.

So you have a 2 4.5 star rated players but the difference in their actual PA is damn near 30. As well as you have 2 players whose reports are only half a star apart but the difference in their actual PA is also almost 30.

My coach and my scout clearly over-estimated the players they were evaluating. It happens. May not happen as often as it does in real life but it still happens. Or is that not wrong enough for you.

[jikavak]

IRL you can say who is going to be better. Scouts and coaches get paid to make exactly that call. They may get it wrong, but they do attempt to predict it.

They do it based on small differences in their game and whatever else they see. I'm saying those two play the exact same game (they have the exact height,weight,everything). There is no way to know who is going to be better IRL. In FM there is

[Dave C]

They do it based on small differences in their game and whatever else they see. I'm saying those two play the exact same game (they have the exact height,weight,everything). There is no way to know who is going to be better IRL. In FM there is

But that's an unrealistic example. The reason scouts use those factors to determine potential is that years of experience show that a high PA player tends to manifest certain characteristics early. So the idea of two players who are utterly identical in every way bar their potential is not a good example. A player with all the right factors at 18 has high potential. If someone opts to create such an artificial scenario in-game, that's an issue with the data input.

[Menion]

I’ve always felt that the CA/PA system is fine, especially for newgens. The problem is that SI don’t want to overrate youngsters so their CA is generally too low at the start of the game. Because their CA is too low, they won’t receive the necessary game time and will not develop, regardless of how high their Pa is (generally underestimated as well). This is understandable as they don’t want everyone to throw away their squad and just play the young players, knowing they will become world class. When the newgens spawn, most the u20 players are forgotten.

[Sancho Panza]

With correct training & focusing on what you want the player to be capable of doing. CA is the player's general football talent however his positional & role CA can be higher or lower than that figure.

A one and a half star CA 20 year old with a potential of 2 stars never ever becomes any better than maybe 2.5 stars on FM at very most. That is the problem with the potential ability rating. It only really goes down and you can just sell or release anyone under 2 stars potential. I agree with the opening post, the stars have got to go. At least can we have the option to get rid of them?

[Dave C]

A one and a half star CA 20 year old with a potential of 2 stars never ever becomes any better than maybe 2.5 stars on FM at very most. That is the problem with the potential ability rating. It only really goes down and you can just sell or release anyone under 2 stars potential. I agree with the opening post, the stars have got to go. At least can we have the option to get rid of them?

The stars are simply a visual summary of your scout's opinion, what's the value in getting rid of them?

Incidentally, I had a winger my coaches told me was 2 stars, I released him, he went on to have an excellent Premier League and England career.

[aderow]

A one and a half star CA 20 year old with a potential of 2 stars never ever becomes any better than maybe 2.5 stars on FM at very most. That is the problem with the potential ability rating. It only really goes down and you can just sell or release anyone under 2 stars potential. I agree with the opening post, the stars have got to go. At least can we have the option to get rid of them?

So is your issue that the scouts are essentially always right? Or is that you're not having much luck producing high potential youngsters?

The stars are simply a visual summary of your scout's opinion, what's the value in getting rid of them?

Incidentally, I had a winger my coaches told me was 2 stars, I released him, he went on to have an excellent Premier League and England career.

Just like I had a player not rated by coaching staff become an England international (luckily I still had him when it happened). I found a top quality lad in league 2 (one quality enough to score 3 times at the world cup).

It seems people are having issue with how accurate scouts are. By no means are they always perfect, but yes, they can be pretty damn accurate a lot of the time.

[mchbitil]

The stars are simply a visual summary of your scout's opinion, what's the value in getting rid of them?

The value is very clear. It will make transfer system and development system more realistic. Will make it easier to buy players of all ages, including the most FM-expensive age of 20-22, for both you and AI. It will make it actually a risk to buy that young player from small country, because you wouldn't know in advance that he is going to become world star. It will give you reason to stick with Ben Amos, since he is 24 and you can believe he still has room to grow. Etc. etc.

[mchbitil]

Just like I had a player not rated by coaching staff become an England international (luckily I still had him when it happened). I found a top quality lad in league 2 (one quality enough to score 3 times at the world cup).

Tell more details of this story. What was CA/PA and age of him when you spotted him in league 2? What was his CA/PA and age when he scored at world cup?

[Coyh]

I have often thought about late bloomers *in cm/fm and how you could put them in, the best way I thought was to have a percentage of players released by clubs receive a boost to there hidden stats and pa once they were picked up by a club so it would be a unknown to me in the game and make scouting of lower leagues a worthwhile task.

*

I think back to David Platt who said the pain of getting let go by Man U changed his out look on life and spurred him on to be a success.

[Dave C]

The value is very clear. It will make transfer system and development system more realistic. Will make it easier to buy players of all ages, including the most FM-expensive age of 20-22, for both you and AI. It will make it actually a risk to buy that young player from small country, because you wouldn't know in advance that he is going to become world star. It will give you reason to stick with Ben Amos, since he is 24 and you can believe he still has room to grow. Etc. etc.

I'm sorry, how does removing a visual representation of your scout's opinion do all that? I can't see how it has any such effects.

[Dave C]

I have often thought about late bloomers *in cm/fm and how you could put them in, the best way I thought was to have a percentage of players released by clubs receive a boost to there hidden stats and pa once they were picked up by a club so it would be a unknown to me in the game and make scouting of lower leagues a worthwhile task.

*

I think back to David Platt who said the pain of getting let go by Man U changed his out look on life and spurred him on to be a success.

Or you just keep things as they are, but have greater variability in rates of progression.

[turnip]

you can just sell or release anyone under 2 stars potential.

If you're talking about your own Youth Intake, I'd expect my coaches to be able to tell me if a player who's been training with the club for 3-4 years has a bit of potential.

That's not to suggest anyone with a low rating is worthless - if their attributes are in the right places, they could do a reasonable job for the Youth team and maybe even be good enough to get sold after a couple of years of training with the First Team.

As for scouted players, scout reports are influenced by the standard of facilities (and I think also the standard of football) of the club the player is at. If the player is at a lower league team with Terrible training facilities, the scout report won't be very generous, but that's where your own judgement comes in. I've signed a handful of players from lower league teams and a couple have gone on to play in the Champions League with big clubs.

Granted, that's me signing them at 16-17 years old, but the issue of older players not developing enough has nothing to do with PA and everything to do (as Ackter keeps saying) with the development curve.

[jujigatame]

I think PPA is more broken than PA. Right now the assman/scout "stars" given for PA seem to represent the "full" PA as long as a player is under 25. That makes no sense. If a player stagnates and doesn't raise his CA significantly from 16-24, his PPA should be shrinking.

[Dr. Hook]

I think PPA is more broken than PA. Right now the assman/scout "stars" given for PA seem to represent the "full" PA as long as a player is under 25. That makes no sense. If a player stagnates and doesn't raise his CA significantly from 16-24, his PPA should be shrinking.

But then you have to account in some way for possible reasons that he's stagnated: there are loads of stories across all sport of players who never lived up to their initial hype being taken on by new clubs in hopes that they will realize their potential. You could argue that the PPA, at least as far as some organizations, remains high. It could be that a club/coach/scout perceives the player didn't develop because of poor coaching, poor handling, etc. rather than any lack of native ability. So if you could find a way to 'unlock' the potential, it could still be achieved.

[jujigatame]

But then you have to account in some way for possible reasons that he's stagnated: there are loads of stories across all sport of players who never lived up to their initial hype being taken on by new clubs in hopes that they will realize their potential. You could argue that the PPA, at least as far as some organizations, remains high. It could be that a club/coach/scout perceives the player didn't develop because of poor coaching, poor handling, etc. rather than any lack of native ability. So if you could find a way to 'unlock' the potential, it could still be achieved.

Except there is no such magical way to instantly "unlock" potential. A player only improves through training and first team experience, and only incrementally. If a 16 year old potential superstar doesn't gain a lick of CA in the first 8 years of his career, he's never going to reach his PA. There is just no chance. Your scouts and assman should be aware that there is a maximum yearly (or monthly) amount of improvement you can reasonably expect a player in his 20s to make, and base PPA on that. It makes no sense to have your scouts tell you that a 24 year old has 2-star CA but 5-star PA. The player will never reach his PA, ever. There is too much of a gap to fill. So the scout should adjust his PA recommendation accordingly.

[aderow]

Tell more details of this story. What was CA/PA and age of him when you spotted him in league 2? What was his CA/PA and age when he scored at world cup?

I never looked at his CA/PA. I never scouted him because I felt no need to.

Except there is no such magical way to instantly "unlock" potential. A player only improves through training and first team experience, and only incrementally. If a 16 year old potential superstar doesn't gain a lick of CA in the first 8 years of his career, he's never going to reach his PA. There is just no chance. Your scouts and assman should be aware that there is a maximum yearly (or monthly) amount of improvement you can reasonably expect a player in his 20s to make, and base PPA on that. It makes no sense to have your scouts tell you that a 24 year old has 2-star CA but 5-star PA. The player will never reach his PA, ever. There is too much of a gap to fill. So the scout should adjust his PA recommendation accordingly.

It does though. The ratings do change. You just have to re-scout said player.

[Dr. Hook]

Except there is no such magical way to instantly "unlock" potential. A player only improves through training and first team experience, and only incrementally. If a 16 year old potential superstar doesn't gain a lick of CA in the first 8 years of his career, he's never going to reach his PA. There is just no chance. Your scouts and assman should be aware that there is a maximum yearly (or monthly) amount of improvement you can reasonably expect a player in his 20s to make, and base PPA on that. It makes no sense to have your scouts tell you that a 24 year old has 2-star CA but 5-star PA. The player will never reach his PA, ever. There is too much of a gap to fill. So the scout should adjust his PA recommendation accordingly.

I somewhat disagree with this statement. Players do develop late, and I've seen it happen. True, something will be probably lost on the way, which I think is realistic, but I have had players at 24 reach their potential or thereabouts by 28 or so. I've also seen quite dramatic improvements in a very short space of time. I don't disagree that PPA might need some tinkering, but overall I don't see it as very problematic. As long as you understand what you are buying in that 24 year old, and remember that PPA is simply your scout giving an opinion on how could a player could be *under the best possible circumstances* it doesn't seem very broken.

What might be a neat addition to the game would be a PPA, an another category that is a projection based on current development level. This might sort what you are talking about. So we have PPA, "how good could be under the best possible conditions," and RPA (realistic potential ability; or likely a better name,) "this is where do we realistically see this player topping out."

[Ackter]

Some players definitely develop faster after turning 24, but it's not a common place thing.

In FM11 I bought a decent right back at 25 because he was the best I could afford at the time. By 29 he was the best right I've ever had in FM (still is). I'll see if can find a picture.

[Ackter]

Only pic I still have of him:

[aderow]

Best real world example of this I can think of is Scott Sinclair. Never really improved much while at Chelsea. Goes to Swansea and improves massively. Go to City and well it's safe to say that his development stagnated. Big time.

[Dr. Hook]

A perfect example with that right back. My most recent (and best, perhaps sadly) is from Fm13, I brought in a keeper for my England level 8 side that had potential to be a Good BSP keeper. He was 25 and barely fit to stand between the posts technically speaking. Within four years he had moved on to a BSP club and started for them for several seasons.

[mchbitil]

I never looked at his CA/PA. I never scouted him because I felt no need to.

before you said "I had him". I assumed you signed him.

[aderow]

before you said "I had him". I assumed you signed him.

Nope. Only ever used him when I was part of the England setup.

[jujigatame]

I somewhat disagree with this statement. Players do develop late, and I've seen it happen. True, something will be probably lost on the way, which I think is realistic, but I have had players at 24 reach their potential or thereabouts by 28 or so. I've also seen quite dramatic improvements in a very short space of time. I don't disagree that PPA might need some tinkering, but overall I don't see it as very problematic. As long as you understand what you are buying in that 24 year old, and remember that PPA is simply your scout giving an opinion on how could a player could be *under the best possible circumstances* it doesn't seem very broken.

What might be a neat addition to the game would be a PPA, an another category that is a projection based on current development level. This might sort what you are talking about. So we have PPA, "how good could be under the best possible conditions," and RPA (realistic potential ability; or likely a better name,) "this is where do we realistically see this player topping out."

I don't think you need to do this if you just fix PPA. Right now I do not think that PPA is "how could he could be under best conditions". I think it's just a flat estimate of PA, with no consideration given to how much the player could realistically improve given his age. And then, very suddenly at age 25, PPA locks to CA and scouts start saying "he isn't likely to improve". It really doesn't make any sense one way or the other. There's no nuance to it at all.

[Shake Appeal]

PA isn't the problem. The predictability and transparency of some systems is the problem. For example, the effect personality has on development is quite pronounced for something that's far too easy to predict and game now that everyone knows what the personalities and media-handling styles mean. (Good luck getting a Casual player to ever reach his potential, but give a Resolute one some regular minutes with decent coaches/facilities and watch him rocket upwards.) Or the stars system, even with its designed fuzziness, gets you most of the way to knowing how a player will turn out under ideal circumstances.

I've suggested possible "ranges" of attributes for scouting players before, and from the "speculative" screenshots we've seen of FM15, SI may be testing that out. What I'd like to see on the development and potential side is "ranges" for personality that become clearer as you spend time working with players. So you never really know what kind of person you're dealing with — or how hard they're going to work to develop — until you've been their manager for many months or even years. Overhaul the Tutoring system so it has more nuance, and give us more options for shaping a player's development (like designating a private coaching assignment that adds to your staff's workload but may have beneficial effects on a player's attitude, or having the effects of morale or team talks or interpersonal relationships have more of a bearing on personality).

It should, of course, be obvious to the user when a young player is a very special talent, but it should be less obvious than it is now, and the road to fulfilling that potential should be more winding and harder to follow.

[richscylla1]

Surely one of the issues with development comes with the players who are "real". For the re-gens there are no issues, as someone said the CA and PA stats are god. But the issue is finding a system that isn't just a random development. Why? Because we want to start the game, sign our favourite young players and have them develop how we THINK they will in real life. So I think the PA system is vital.

[DizzyPenguin]

less-important Premier League games

What are these?!

[colusso2]

I somewhat disagree with this statement. Players do develop late, and I've seen it happen. True, something will be probably lost on the way, which I think is realistic, but I have had players at 24 reach their potential or thereabouts by 28 or so. I've also seen quite dramatic improvements in a very short space of time. I don't disagree that PPA might need some tinkering, but overall I don't see it as very problematic. As long as you understand what you are buying in that 24 year old, and remember that PPA is simply your scout giving an opinion on how could a player could be *under the best possible circumstances* it doesn't seem very broken.

What might be a neat addition to the game would be a PPA, an another category that is a projection based on current development level. This might sort what you are talking about. So we have PPA, "how good could be under the best possible conditions," and RPA (realistic potential ability; or likely a better name,) "this is where do we realistically see this player topping out."

How is PPA not broken????? It's clearly stated in this thread that there is a PA and a PPA, PPA is what your scout 'thinks' , but as we can see which scout is a 20/20, and which is a rubbish 10/10, we know that the 20/20 scout gets the PPA pretty accurate, whereas the 10/10 won't. That is the real problem.

The PA should be hidden, the player example given earlier should always give a high PPA as for his age he is well beyond his peers.

One solution is to hide the stats on a scout, so you only know if a scout is good if he has a good track record. Other problem is why don't the big clubs at least TRY to get the best scouts, as they are so obvious to spot... that is another big issue.

Scouts should not be able to give reports on youth players who have not even played youth games! They certainly should not be able to predict PPA accurately for 16yr olds, and certainly not be able to send you 100 scout reports in 3days from around the world which is the case right now.

IT IS BROKEN. Saying it ain't so does not move the argument forward. It does not improve the game. Mods coming here trying to for whatever reason not engage the OP and take his and others points on board is of no use to anyone.

This is the most important thread on this forum. 99% of the rest are just useless, SI need to look at this, and the great points being raised. Mods should not be trying to dismiss this.

[Neil Brock]

How is PPA not broken????? It's clearly stated in this thread that there is a PA and a PPA, PPA is what your scout 'thinks' , but as we can see which scout is a 20/20, and which is a rubbish 10/10, we know that the 20/20 scout gets the PPA pretty accurate, whereas the 10/10 won't. That is the real problem.

The PA should be hidden, the player example given earlier should always give a high PPA as for his age he is well beyond his peers.

One solution is to hide the stats on a scout, so you only know if a scout is good if he has a good track record. Other problem is why don't the big clubs at least TRY to get the best scouts, as they are so obvious to spot... that is another big issue.

Scouts should not be able to give reports on youth players who have not even played youth games! They certainly should not be able to predict PPA accurately for 16yr olds, and certainly not be able to send you 100 scout reports in 3days from around the world which is the case right now.

IT IS BROKEN. Saying it ain't so does not move the argument forward. It does not improve the game. Mods coming here trying to for whatever reason not engage the OP and take his and others points on board is of no use to anyone.

This is the most important thread on this forum. 99% of the rest are just useless, SI need to look at this, and the great points being raised. Mods should not be trying to dismiss this.

20/20 is likely to get closer only the older a player gets. The younger a player is then the scouts have less chance of accurately knowing his PPA across the board - the chances of a scout getting the PA bang-on for a 14-16 year old is incredibly slim. Even a 20/20 scout won't see a players exact PA even as they get older. But yeah, there are definitely aspects at scouting which could be improved to make it more realistic.

[upthetoon]

I like the idea of not being able to see a scout's actually judging ability & leaving it for the manager to assess their effectiveness through the experience of players signed off the back of their scouting reports or the transfer record of their previous employers when looking to hire a new scout, it appeals to my LLaMa side.

i quite like this too..

[cynathor]

I like the idea of not being able to see a scout's actually judging ability & leaving it for the manager to assess their effectiveness through the experience of players signed off the back of their scouting reports or the transfer record of their previous employers when looking to hire a new scout, it appeals to my LLaMa side.

Why not make it an opt in feature like player attribute masking?

I agree with the whole idea of PA being slightly limited. Playing Manchester United last two editions of FM, I've had the issue of Darren Fletcher, who in the game in a model professional, playing excellently every game. He's overcome his injury issues, and alongside Evans are my sureshots for most big games. But my Assistant Manager, Tassotti always rates the two at the bottom of my pile.

Here's my suggestion

1. Each player starts the game with a fixed or negative CA like currently based on origin country, club recruitment network, maybe heritage (Kai Rooney anyone?) etc etc

2. He is allocated a dynamic 'Growth Potential' based on youth record (if present), youth coaches, training facilities, level of competition, country, personality, etc etc.

3. All the factors in growth potential can be modified, essentially allowing a dedicated FM user to make the regens coming through his system far far better. When a player switches clubs, it is possible his growth potential can change. A players personality can also change through training or off field events or just maturity. We need to have more potentially good players who need mental attribute tutoring, and this should be possible by staff also, increasing importance of youth coaches and maybe psychologists.

4. There has to be a fix for the players peaking out situation. You can keep growth potential as a soft barrier rather than a hard barrier that a player can increase if he exceeds his projected performance. For example, if my 21 year old defender is approaching the height of his powers as a centre back, my scouts can inform me that and suggest how to augment his game, say by adding passing or recognising that his earlier than expected physical development means he can be better midfielder. If this development happens by fluke rather than by design, the player can have an increased injury record as we have seen with players who have peaked too early in real life.

5. Projected performance - we've seen this in other games where you see a year to year graph (quantified) of a player's abilities. This is too direct in FM terms so we can replace this with development on some sort of star based scale showing physical development, technical development, mental development and game performance. You get an assessment of this at the start of the year and you can possibly exceed it with the right moves. A player who exceeds his projection several years in a row, he becomes a candidate to move up the potential ladder.

[BlueHawaiian]

I like the idea of not knowing how good your scouts are at judging PA too, so you judge on players you have previously signed using them. I've always had a problem with PA myself, but I'd never really thought about the abilities of staff.

By the time a player appears on the game, aged 15 or so, in reality their potential ability would most likely be a realistic thing (although maybe not a precise score like it is in FM, but it's a game, it has to have some way of recording it). Keeping things within their current framework, I would like to see far more players who come through the youth systems at higher levels have high potential, but ultimately have most of them not reach it (depending on other factors, like playing time, coaches/facilities at the club, the man-management of the player, etc). Scouting reports could then say things like 'he could be world class, but you've got to give him a lot of focus to achieve it' or 'he could be world class, but his attitude will probably hold him back', giving a manager more of a headache about if they want to sign a potentially world class player or not.

[Kriss]

Exactly so, in the rw it's up to a manager to assess how good his scouts are on the evidence of results over time.

I really would like to see staff CA and PA made completely inaccessible.

[colusso2]

20/20 is likely to get closer only the older a player gets. The younger a player is then the scouts have less chance of accurately knowing his PPA across the board - the chances of a scout getting the PA bang-on for a 14-16 year old is incredibly slim. Even a 20/20 scout won't see a players exact PA even as they get older. But yeah, there are definitely aspects at scouting which could be improved to make it more realistic.

I'm sure its not 100% accruate, but when you only have a 10-scale star system to describe a 200 point PA system, it doesn't have to be 100% accruate, the point is that it is far too easy to know within a week of sending out scouts (good scouts - why even hire bad scouts?) to find the top talent in the world. It really can't be that easy.

At least then you level the playing field somewhat between AI and Human, AI is already too dumb in its squad building, one huge reason I find it very easy to take any team higher is that I can easily work to a long term plan but buying good youngsters.

[bigdunk]

I'm not sure that hiding scouts judging attributes is that great of an idea. If they are just removed with no other changes, it becomes a logistical nightmare trying to figure out if a scout is any good or not - you'll have to cross reference hundreds of player reports with the scouts that made them and compare them to how the play turned out to figure out if a scout is any good or not, to the extent that nobody will actually bother. Scouts will just become interchangeable, with nobody really knowing if they're any good or not.And if it goes the other way, and SI add a bunch of analysis tools to help with figuring out if a scout is good or not, it just becomes busywork. Instead of reading two attribute values, you have to go to another screen and somehow calculate them yourselves from a bunch of source values - wasting time for no real gain. It does feel like a realistic addition, but I don't think it actually adds anything of value to the game. It doesn't give me any interesting decisions to make, and it doesn't add anything to other areas of the game.

[BlueHawaiian]

perhaps scouts could have a specialist field too - for example, a scout who was a defender when he was a player would be more likely to be able to spot a potentially good defender more easily than a scout who was previously a striker, as they would have more knowledge about the position. That way, scouts could have specific positions or attributes that they are particularly good at searching for, rather than a stat out of 20

[samdiatmh]

20/20 is likely to get closer only the older a player gets. The younger a player is then the scouts have less chance of accurately knowing his PPA across the board - the chances of a scout getting the PA bang-on for a 14-16 year old is incredibly slim. Even a 20/20 scout won't see a players exact PA even as they get older. But yeah, there are definitely aspects at scouting which could be improved to make it more realistic.

THIS

I had my 20/20 assman rated my newgen DM as a 1.5* PA, so I didn't give him a fulltime deal (fair enough right? not rated very well)

Ended up checking the editor, had a PA of ~170

RAGE! but it was a guy that slipped through the cracks, I was very well aware of the risks

and not all high PA players cost a bomb, I signed a 195PA player (in FM13) for under 1m from Crewe when he was 16

ended up being a great impact player (his speed was electric) and scored in the 90+4 minute in the CL semi to beat Barcelona

insta-god!

and another example was a midfielder that I signed (who then stagnated for me) for 7.5m

kept him about 3 years but didn't think he'd get opportunities (and didn't develop either), did well to get my money back (or so I thought) from Valencia

they had him for a couple of years, developed him well, and ended up making him the best AMR in the game (and sold him for 41m to City)

I didn't like that one either

Also, I kept playing Srna because he kept producing for me at the age of 34 (he'd rapidly starting getting worse at this point) but still had good stats in key areas

Arguably one of my main creative players (I used him as AMR - yeah... he kept out the guy above ) and his CA was under 110 (1* CA, told to look to replacements by my MR - me resigning had him lumped into the reserves)

And PA isn't the only thing for the AI either

was the only club going in for a 5* PA DC, and after a couple of development years, he ended up being the a nice solid option in defence, and I sold him for 43m

yeah.... my scouts aren't perfect, but it's a simulation and I made the call to move the players on, despite their PA (or CA) - if they can do a job, then who cares?

[denizgunu]

I'm not sure that hiding scouts judging attributes is that great of an idea. If they are just removed with no other changes, it becomes a logistical nightmare trying to figure out if a scout is any good or not - you'll have to cross reference hundreds of player reports with the scouts that made them and compare them to how the play turned out to figure out if a scout is any good or not, to the extent that nobody will actually bother. Scouts will just become interchangeable, with nobody really knowing if they're any good or not.And if it goes the other way, and SI add a bunch of analysis tools to help with figuring out if a scout is good or not, it just becomes busywork. Instead of reading two attribute values, you have to go to another screen and somehow calculate them yourselves from a bunch of source values - wasting time for no real gain. It does feel like a realistic addition, but I don't think it actually adds anything of value to the game. It doesn't give me any interesting decisions to make, and it doesn't add anything to other areas of the game.

What about using scouts' reputation? You can trust your scout more if his/her reputation is higher.

[mchbitil]

What are these?!

1. games against Watford, Burnley, etc.

2. games in the end of the season, after I already won the title

[mchbitil]

I like it that the idea of not having a numerical value for staff ability is gaining a little traction, now I just need to think of a viable alternative & put it forward as a feature request.

The problem is that it will make a game unnecessary complicated. I will have to have papers around me with names of scouts and lists of players next to them.

The game should help you know the numbers you are supposed to know, as a manager. As a manager of a club, you are supposed to know if the scout that was with a club for 5 years is any good. So having staff JA/JP visible makes sense.

What else makes sense is that even 20/20 scouts should have much more error than they do have now.